Kammerer Middle School student Hollis Rhodes teaches Marty Park, chief digital officer in KDE’s Office of Education Technology, how to fly a drone through a hoop. Photo by Fiona Morgan, Kentucky Department of Education, May 13, 2025
(LOUISVILLE, KY) – Students at Kammerer Middle School (Jefferson County) led a drone competition and taught students how to fly drones as part of their Student Technology Leadership Project (STLP) State Championship project.
The group of six students spent much of the 2024-2025 school year teaching students of all ages how to fly drones.
Calling themselves “The Girls in Flight,” members of the group were Sophie Duncan, Evie Colpo, Harper Rhodes, Hollis Rhodes, Abby Durbin and Ava Williams.
Spanning 6th–8th grade, they are all interested in engineering and had learned to fly drones in engineering classes at Kammerer. Harper said she developed an interest in drones after she learned to fly one in class.
“After you learn, you can help somebody else learn and it was really cool to be able to actually learn how to teach about drones,” Harper said.
The group taught elementary, middle and high school students both in and outside of their district about drones. They talked about jobs that people can do with drones, raising awareness about different career paths.
Their goal was to host a beginner-friendly drone competition at the STLP State Championship event where many Kentucky students they taught could come in knowing how to use a drone. They won Best STLP Project in Kentucky for the 6-8 Division.
The Student Technology Leadership Program is run by the Kentucky Department of Education’s (KDE’s) Office of Education Technology. It uses project-based learning, technology utilization and digital content creation to empower student achievement through vibrant learning experiences.
The championship took place at Lexington’s Rupp Arena on April 23. It featured more than 500 K-12 schools from 107 school districts. Students competed in 20 live challenges, and more than 600 student teams presented their year-long, technology-based projects.
The Kammerer Middle School group’s competition course included flying drones through hoops, getting the drone to flip mid-air, using the wind created from drones to push ping pong balls from one side of an enclosed area to the other side, and landing the drone inside a ring.
They also set up a practice course where competitors could get familiarized with the challenges and rules before competing. Members of the girls in flight led demonstrations on how to use the drones.
When they taught students during the school year, they taught them how to use the exact drone that would be at the STLP competition. Hollis said the drones they used were specifically made for competitions, and training everyone on those drones allowed students to be on an even playing field.
The Girls in Flight are driven by a desire to help get more girls interested in engineering.
“Our message from the project was that we want more girls in engineering, because not only guys can do it; it’s all of us,” Harper said.
Sophie said that when they talked to 6th graders at Kammerer Middle School who were choosing their pathway in school, many girls thought engineering wasn’t for them.
“A lot of what deterred girls from being in engineering was that they thought it was just a boy thing, because there were two male (engineering) teachers and mostly male students (in those classes),” Sophie said. “They may not have felt very welcome, but we tried to explain that we are doing engineering, and they can do it too.”
Hollis said the school recently hired a new engineering teacher who’s female. She said once some of their fellow female students saw more females in engineering classes, they were encouraged to learn more about engineering including the drone competition.
In addition to teaching students throughout the year, the girls in flight visited a UPS drone facility to learn about their Flight Forward initiative, which uses drones to deliver packages.
Evie said one of her favorite parts about the STLP project was learning and teaching how people can use drones in careers.
“I liked getting more girls specifically invested in engineering as well as teaching kids that these drones that they are learning right now can be relevant to their future,” Evie said.
The group also wrote a product review of the drone model they used at school for The Drone Girl blog website. They collaborated with Sally French, owner of the blog, and each group member contributed to the CoDrone EDU Review.
Kentucky Department of Education staff and Kammerer Middle School students stand in front of the STLP state champion sign. Photo by Fiona Morgan, Kentucky Department of Education, May 13, 2025
Background of the project
The group participated in a drone competition at the 2024 STLP state championship because they had some experience with drones, but they didn’t end up doing well. Hollis explained that they learned from that experience and wanted to create their own drone challenge course at Kammerer Middle School.
The group set up a course in their school cafeteria and a practice course in the gym. They first invited elementary students within their district and students at Kammerer to learn about drones and try out the course.
When the 2024-2025 school year began, the group wanted to use that course as their STLP project for the state competition. They invited more schools in their district and other districts to come to Kammerer and try the course. They also brought the course to other schools to teach students about it.
After hearing positive feedback about their course, the group got permission to host a drone competition at STLP. Harper said when they started making rules and obstacles, they wanted to make the rules clearer and the obstacles more beginner-friendly than the competition at last year’s STLP.
Sophie said she thinks their project stood out at STLP because it was something the group was already doing before deciding it would be for STLP.
“I feel like a lot of projects are made specifically for STLP … and if they don’t like it, they might get rid of the project,” Sophie said.
The group will continue teaching fellow students about drones and will keep the course equipment at Kammerer Middle School for future students to use. The girls said they were not focused on winning STLP so much as they were focused on making it easy for everyone to learn.
“We thought that no matter what happened, whether we made it to level two or level three at STLP, it doesn’t matter; we were going to still come back and do drones at Kammerer,” Hollis said.
Harper said she enjoyed the level of collaboration the group shared on the project. Each member had a chance to contribute to each aspect of the project, but they also had their individual duties that all came together in the final product.
Sophie said she liked how many adults at STLP were interested in their project.
David Couch, associate commissioner in the KDE Office of Education Technology, said he was impressed by all the collaboration and communication involved in the project.
“It’s not just technology, but it’s the leadership part which is an important part,” Couch said. “So these are great life skills that you can have no matter what you do in life. The stuff you’re doing now at these ages really does give you an edge later on in life, and you just don’t realize it in comparison to other folks. There’s a lot of folks that have difficulty presenting in front of others, and you’ve done that talking with adults.”
Members of KDE recently visited Kammerer Middle School to learn about the championship project. The “Girls in Flight” gave them a drone demonstration and helped them learn their challenge course.
The group recently represented Kentucky as special presenters at the 2025 International Society for Technology in Education Conference in San Antonio, which is one of the world’s largest education technology gatherings.
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